Preschools for Slow Children

An extraordinary educational event has taken place in this country.
As of 1991, all states agreed to provide educational services for every
child with a developmental disability from birth. The objective of this
intense effort at early intervention is to accelerate the development
of slow children so that they can be integrated into the mainstream.
This commitment marks a radical and welcome change in attitude and
practice towards the handicapped. We are all enlarged by the presence
of children with disabilities in our schools and on our playgrounds; by
adults with disabilities in the work place and even on television. Yet
there are risks involved in pushing children to make rapid gains in the
hope of a "catch-up'' effect. Such efforts may conflict with their
natural developmental pace and allow them inadequate time to make sense
of the world through their own actions.

The debate over how much we hurry young children is familiar to
educators of young children without disabilities. Indeed, one
distinctive characteristic of 20th-century school reformers is a
preference for natural growth over hot-housing approaches. Special
education has participated less in this debate, perhaps because simply
getting services for all children has been a full-time mission. In
addition, early intervention programs are predicated on the goal and
expectation of accelerated progress. But for these children, too, it is
important to ask: Is early acceleration the best way to help slow
children achieve their maximum potential? Can excessive drive on our
part erode nascent drive on their part?

From my observations, based on a field study that took me across the
country to 20 early-intervention programs for 3-to 5-year-old children
with developmental disabilities, in our drive to accelerate progress,
we are imposing a regime on small children that they are incapable of
handling. The theory is that we can rectify deficits by taking
advantage of the early years to instill the knowledge and behaviors
required later. So, to get the children "ready'' for kindergarten, we
ask kindergarten behaviors of them--sitting in chairs, attending to a
teacher, following a schedule, and working on preacademics.

This is not to say that early-intervention programs are harsh
places. Quite the contrary. They are staffed by devoted, selfless
teachers who almost always create an ambience of concern, energy, and
good will. The days run smoothly. Teachers appear calm, soft spoken,
approving, and encouraging. They are highly professional and work long
hours on detailed individualized lesson plans. Children comply with the
daily routines and obey their teachers. Parents are involved and
grateful for adults who sincerely care about and value their children.
The calm, however, is purchased through subtle and repressive control
devices; the child compliance too often masks low levels of learning
and genuine participation.

A brief glimpse at the early-morning activities in a typical program
may begin to give the reader a sense of how decency, optimism, and
considered care by attentive adults can also be repressive and
restrictive for children. Obviously, the following vignette does not
apply to every program, or any program all the time, but it is
representative and it could hardly be otherwise given the dictates of
the current system.

At 8:30 on a November morning Doreen, a 3-year-old with Down's
syndrome, arrives on a school bus to join five other preschoolers with
disabilities at Midwood, a regular elementary school. As the group
proceeds down the corridor, Doreen drops the hand of her teacher, sits
on the floor, and pulls at a diaper from her small back pack. Teacher
Teresa, who needs to keep her group together and moving, bends over
Doreen and says urgently but patiently: "It's time to walk now
Doreen.''

Shaking her head Doreen responds, "Me sit.''

"Doreen,'' entreats Teresa, "I know you want to be a big girl and
walk to class now. I will help you.''

Teresa, under increasing pressure from the other children who are
breaking rank, reluctantly picks up a resistant Doreen, puts her into a
wagon with another child, and the small group proceeds.

Once inside the classroom the children have free play. Doreen,
troubles forgotten, proceeds to the doll corner where she puts on a
large felt hat with a big wavy feather and preens in front of a
head-to-foot mirror. She tilts her head up, then down. The hat falls
off, she replaces it and preens some more. Each time the hat falls--a
second, third, and fourth time--Doreen recovers it and resumes
posturing at the mirror. Teresa in another part of the room, aware of
how long Doreen has been at the mirror, asks her aide Anita, "Can you
help Doreen find something more productive to do, perhaps with
David''?

Anita invites Doreen to join her and David in putting a baby doll to
bed. As Doreen approaches, David thrusts a baby bottle at her. Doreen
ignores it and, instead, puts her big felt hat on the doll. Anita says:
"Oh, that's too big for baby. You are big but she is little. Can you
and David find a little blanket to cover her''? Anita's attention is
then diverted by another child and Doreen walks back to the mirror
dragging a blanket and the hat.

After 10 minutes of free play the children are summoned to circle.
Molly, who has been unloading blocks from a shelf, pays no attention
and is told by Anita, "It's time to be all done now.'' No response.
Anita then walks over to her and says, "Molly, I guess you want Anita
to help you clean up.''

At circle, Doreen begins to play with Molly's long soft hair, while
Molly, indifferent to Doreen's caresses, is trying to get hold of her
own shoe. When Teresa notices, after the greeting song, she reminds the
children, "It is time to listen now. Doreen and Molly where do we keep
our hands? Hands need to sit on our laps, remember?'' Anita, seated
behind the girls, reaches around and places the girls' hands on their
laps. Teresa continues: "I like the way you have your hands now.''

Teresa then proceeds with the calendar asking, "What month is
this''?

The answers come in: "Winter,'' "Monday,'' "Thanksgiving.''

To the last, Teresa comments, "Thanksgiving; that's close. Is
Thanksgiving in November or December?''

"November,'' responds David.

She then asks for the date. When no one responds she points to a
posted calendar of the month and begins to count with the children,
"One, two, three.'' When they reach 11 she stops and says, "Good
counting, today is November 11th.''

During the calendar time, Molly, unsuccessful in reaching her shoes,
starts twisting in her chair and playing with the poms poms on her
skirt. When the group begins counting, she slips away from the circle,
crawls under a table, and finally gets to her shoes. Teresa, taking
note, says to Anita, "Molly wants you to help her sit.'' After Anita
restores Molly to the chair, Teresa compliments her for "good
sitting,'' and says, "Now it's time for our songs''--and the activities
continue.

Although space permits only this brief glance at a typical program,
we can see already that the children have entered a culture, an order,
that in its "schoolishness'' is alien to their "toddlerishness''--a
phenomenon common to our schools more generally. It starts with the
physical environment. Because special-education preschool programs are
usually located in elementary public-school buildings, the adults must
carefully monitor the movements of the children down long corridors of
classrooms and whenever they leave their own room for such activities
as toileting, lunch, playground, or the gym. It is difficult for young
children functioning as toddlers (18 months to 2 years in our example)
to walk the distance without yielding to distractions, as Doreen does
when she has a "sit down'' to play with her diaper.

The uncongenial demands of a school culture continue inside the room
where the children are expected to abide by group routines. Teresa,
much like teachers of older nonhandicapped children, has partitioned
her morning into "periods'' for the cultivation of different domains:
toileting, free play, circle, art, cognitive, gross motor, toileting
again, and departure. When it is "time to,'' she expects the children
to put away their activities and move on. This is another demand that
is difficult for toddlers to meet. Molly is in the thick of moving
blocks about when called for circle. She is required to come and, after
slipping away, required to return.

The accelerated content of the program stresses a "preacademic''
core curriculum; in particular, colors, numbers, shapes, simple
puzzles, and big/little. The preacademics are taught throughout the day
(note even at free play Anita brings in big and little), and often in a
separate period devoted to "cognitive'' learning. Almost all programs
review daily the calendar and weather. Here, too, the children's
confusion is obvious from their answers. Teresa "helps'' by giving them
alternative answers and by seizing upon the right answer from their
rote responses.

Because of the concern to accelerate development, teachers are very
aversive to wasting time. Even during free play, therefore, they
regularly attempt to redirect children away from activities that appear
repetitive and unsocial. As we saw with Doreen, however, the adult
suggestion (to play with the doll and David) is often disregarded, and
the attempt may abort an activity that was meaningful and enjoyable to
the child (preening at the mirror).

In order to press forward their set of tough demands without obvious
classroom malfunction, teachers have developed a set of control
techniques that are designed to increase the children's self-esteem.
They gently direct instruction, structure the daily routines into small
units, disguise children's failure, and give copious approval. However,
it is questionable if the children feel on top of their own learning
when they regularly guess at answers without understanding the
questions, and make constant errors on material that is repeated month
after month; when their self-chosen pursuits are challenged as
unproductive and interrupted to meet the schedule; when their impulses
are often suppressed, or disregarded and distorted.

Some programs, albeit a small minority, take a less teacher-directed
and preacademic approach as illustrated by the following scene from
Midwood II:

The classroom is now located close to the school entrance with no
more long corridors requiring children to line-up. During free play
when Doreen puts on a hat and preens before the mirror, Anita sits on
the floor next to her and makes occasional comments on what is
happening. After a bit, Doreen spontaneously turns the hat over to
Anita. Anita puts it on her own head and makes a face in the mirror.
Doreen giggles, takes the hat back and mimics Anita. Anita then offers
Doreen a blanket and necklace she has fetched. Eagerly, Doreen puts on
the necklace, while Anita wraps the blanket over her own shoulders.

Comment: Instead of "redirecting'' Doreen to an activity not of her
own choosing, Anita "joins'' the on-going behavior. When Anita puts on
the hat Doreen gave her she is demonstrating approval and establishing
a comradeship with the child. Her verbal comments map the activity and
will be more readily picked up by Doreen than language (e.g.,
big/little) removed from the action. Anita stretches Doreen's play by
suggesting small increments--the funny face and the offer of
supplementary ornamental objects. The ideas are close enough to the
original that they are picked up by Doreen without Anita's
imposition.

At circle time, now considerably shortened, Doreen again strokes
Molly's hair. Since it is developmentally appropriate, Teresa lets it
go on. Even so, Molly slips away and crawls into a large solitary box,
where she nestles against the pillows Teresa has made available for
this very purpose. After a few minutes, she climbs out, goes to the
shelf that houses the cardboard blocks, picks one up, returns to the
solitary box, deposits the block in the box, climbs in, climbs out,
goes to the shelf for another block, deposits it in the same box,
climbs in, climbs out, and continues this routine until five blocks
have been deposited into the box. Then, finding the box crowded, she
reverses the routine, returning blocks to the shelf one at a time.

Comment: In Midwood I "paying attention'' meant conforming to group
routine. In Midwood II it is reinterpreted as involvement with
activities appropriate to a child's developmental level. Molly is
learning more, Teresa realizes, through her block trips (about space,
size, weight, sequences) than by nonparticipatory passive sitting in
circle; and her sense of personal efficacy is boosted more by carrying
out her own intentions than by submitting to the intentions of others,
however disguised by praise.

At Midwood II, Teresa is attuned to the toddler status of these
children and has given up on most of the core curriculum and behavioral
demands of Midwood I, for the habitat of toddlers is concrete objects,
not abstract concepts, and movement, not sitting and attending. They do
not understand the meaning of numbers and shapes, have no time
awareness beyond the present, and not the slightest understanding of
the relationships among days, weeks, and months. At Midwood II, where
there is no longer a large gap between the expectations of adults and
the functional levels of children, teachers are not forced into
repressive management. On the other hand, there is less structure and
predictability, and less acquisition of kindergarten-type
knowledge.

An important question for Teresa and her colleagues in early
intervention, for parents, and for policymakers, is how hard to push
the slow child, how much to impose an adult agenda that is often
uncongenial. This question needs to be considered in light of the
psychic costs inflicted, as well as the academic and behavioral
benefits attained. My own conclusion is that the evidence for genuine
cognitive improvement is insufficient to justify the heavy control of
children so often seen in early-intervention programs. A curriculum
centered more on their pace and interests, even if less advanced, might
yield more eventual progress, especially if "progress'' is defined
broadly to include the virtues of inquisitiveness, boldness, and a
zesty personality. But teachers cannot be expected to ease up on
children, to spend more effort and imagination on eliciting and
supporting children's initiatives, if the general public does not ease
up the pressure on them. The "fault'' lies not in the teachers, but in
a society that still makes acceptance conditional upon narrow
achievements.

Joan F. Goodman is an associate professor of education at the
University of Pennsylvania and a specialist in the education of young
handicapped children. This essay is drawn from her forthcoming book,
When Slow is Fast Enough: Early Education of the Delayed Child, which
will be published in June by Guilford Publications Inc., New York,
N.Y.

Joan F. Goodman is an associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania and a specialist in the education of young handicapped children. This essay is drawn from her forthcoming book, When Slow is Fast Enough: Early Education of the Delayed Child, which will be published in June by Guilford Publications Inc., New York, N.Y.

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